dsc01407c.jpg

A sign near the LCVP (Higgins boat). It reads

Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer:
Les Moulins

The beach facing Les Moulins had been codenamed "Dog Red". Two battalions of the 116th Infantry Regiment landed astride the road to Les Moulins. The naval bombardment had set fire to the houses and scrub. The smoke blinded the German marksmen. It was so bad that the GIs had to don their gas masks when they reached the top of the slope leading to the flag ground.

The place named Les Moulins is pretty much in the middle of Omaha Beach. The German defenses were particularly strong on this, the only beach between Arromanches and Grandcamp. Its 4 mile length held, among other things, eight batteries in casemates, thirty-five forts, eight-five machine gun nests, eighteen antitank positions, not counting booby-trapped beach obstacles, minefields on the marshy shoulder and the deep defenses.

The Germans waited for their assailants to hit the beach before opening fire; as a result, their firing positions, which had escaped almost unscathed from the aerial bombing, could not be located quickly enough.

There was a near catastrophe on Omaha. At twelve noon, General Bradley, aboard his headquarters ship the Augusta, had thoughts of giving up and diverting his troops toward "Utah" or the British positions. The heroism of the fighting men finally won the day. From 7th June, on the other hand, the American troops made fairly rapid progress.